It was before Christmas that Aidan was singing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." And yet..... Santa failed to deliver. Now its the end of March. And still no sign of those front teeth.

So cute....using "them" instead of "they"saying, "why you know?" in place of, "how do you know" or "how did you know that?"Always using the word "very" in the wrong place... as in, "the kitties, them went very up there."

I know its all wrong, but I don't correct it because it is just too darn cute.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I thought I had blogged about it, but I guess I didn't. A year ago, in Mar/April '08, Aidan started a new swim class at the Y. Since he had just turned 6, he was no longer in the preschool class, and was now a youth. Youth=swim class in The Big Pool. I didn't think anything of it. He knew how to swim across the width of the little pool. But woah nellie...one would have thought we were trying to throw him in hot molten lava and telling him he could never come home again. He cried all class. We tried it again the following week. More tears. So they allowed him back into a preschool class. When that session wrapped up in early June, I stopped enrolling the kids in swim lessons all together. I needed a break. Between that and N&E not listening to their instructor and refusing to get out of the pool at the end of class.... yeah.

Fast forward to today. First lesson of this session. I figured that the Mar-June session was as best a time as any to stick them back in, seeing as how summer is coming up. I hope.

I could tell that Aidan had a few reservations, but was nothing like last year. He was stoked that one of his JK friends, Dane, and he were in the same class. I kept my eye on him and he was aok throughout the whole class in The Big Pool. At the end of the 45 min class, I saw the instructor walk them down to The Deep and explain what they were to do. I could see Aidan telling him that no, he was not going to do that. However, once Aidan saw his classmates and Dane do it, he crawled up on the platform, shaky as all getup, and low and behold, HE JUMPED! In the 10 ft deep water!!!!! I was so stinkin' proud of the kid. He overcame his fear. We celebrated his success tonight. Big boy, he is.

Last Thursday was our school's annual Sock Hop. We took the kids and they had a blast. After waiting until the last minute to look for a poodle skirt for Norah and then having no luck, I decided to make her one. And then it went terribly wrong. One little wrong fold and oops...there were 2 holes for the waist. Thankfully, felt is inexpensive and can be used for crafts. And thankfully, she was able to borrow a dress from a friend. Whew! Crisis averted.The kids danced, hula-hooped, ate junk food, and had a good time.

Unfortunately, Aidan froze in a state of shyness when his friends (female) asked him to dance. Here he is, pouting.

Monday, March 23, 2009

The dude's name has been coming up in some funny contexts in our house as of recent. The last one being, "Ellie's got Jesus in his mouth!!!"

That comment referred to this tiny gold baby. Probably totally coated in lead. It was the baby from our King Cake that we had during Mardi Gras. And that whole ordeal was pretty funny itself. Before we cut into the cake, Chris read the story on the side of the box to the kids and then explained that the baby in the cake represented baby Jesus. Elliott was so perplexed during the reading. He solmnely stated, "But baby Jesus* is dead." about halfway through the explination. We giggled and went on. At the end, he said, "If baby Jesus is dead, how can he be in our cake?" He just couldn't grasp the concept of representation. Then of course, all the kids were screaming, "I WANT TO FIND BABY JESUS!" And then when we did, they were all, "No fair! Aidan found Jesus! and you cut his foot!" (oops. I accidentally ran into him with the knife when I was cutting).

*The whole 'baby Jesus' kept reminding me of Talladega Nights. "Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want."

Speaking of finding Jesus, a month or two ago, I was in Marshall's/Home Goods with the kids, perusing the home decor aisles. I was one aisle over when I heard Norah scream (yes, scream), "MOM! I found Jesus!!!!"

Some heads turned. I went over to her and sure enough, it was a porcelin statue of Mary holding baby Jesus. Of course, Elliott had to chime in on how it was BABY Jesus.

And finally, we were at Bartz's party store last week, trying to find sock hop accessories. We passed the Easter aisle and they stopped and exclaimed, "Look! Its the Easter Bunny! And Jesus!" Yup. Costumes. The discussion continued about how the Jesus costume looked silly because of the long hair.

We had conferences on Friday. All went glowingly well. Going into Aidan's, I was already up to speed because we had just had his IEP the week prior, and a lot came up in there.

Aidan is a good student. He's one of those kids who follows the classroom rules. If the teacher gives the strategies for being a Strong Reader, he follows all of them. He does every step, without skipping one. And because of this, he's moved up 2 reading levels in less than a month. We're so proud of him.

Aidan is a shy kid. Not so much with adults....he can sit down and talk an adult's ear off (hello, Uncle Ryan!). But it takes him a long time to build up a friendship that he's comfortable with. Or at least, that's what we see on the outside. His teacher says that he interacts just fine in the classroom, which is wonderful to hear. However, one of his very best friends is a girl. And there are some cruel boys in his class who have taken to taunting him for this, calling them boyfriend and girlfriend. Said boy has also critiqued Aidan's kicking and running skills when it comes to recess kickball. I'd like to have a word with the kid's mom, but that's not here nor there. Thankfully, Aid's teacher called a meeting to try and put a stop to the behavior by talking about how you treat your classmates and how boys and girls can be friends and its ok.

After the first meeting, Aidan and I were walking home and he was telling me about it. He was saying how 'J' has not been well behaved since the first day of school and he's just not very nice. I said something to the effect of, "Well, that's ok. You're not going to be friends with everyone. That's just part of life." And he chewed on it and said something like, "Well Mommy, he is still my friend, he's just a boy who does not make good choices most of the time."

Wow. He's so sweet...always willing to give someone another chance and the benefit of the doubt. I hope it doesn't bite him in the butt as he goes through life. I hope that he manages to stay a non-cynical person with a positive outlook.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Last week, I came across some dry erase markers that were on clearance at Target, so I snatched them up, since 1) ours have been dry for months, 2) the kids lurve the dry erase board, and 3) they are darn expensive.

Norah and Elliott created some cute art...

Elliott's rendition of our family

"Mommy, this is you and daddy when you were married."

Norah's family portrait. Notice she left out her brothers? Just mom, dad, Norah, and the cats. hrm.

Saturday morning we woke up and looked out the patio doors of our condo to see 3 deer.

What a fun weekend....lots of swimming, waterpark fun, and friends.

Saturday morning we woke up and looked out the patio doors of our condo to see 3 deer.

Not even 5 minutes later, the kids spotted the hot air balloon. Norah commented, "daddy, there are some cool things in this world."

Sure are, baby girl.

And now....a little Sunday Swimming Fun :)

We've got a fun-filled week coming up! We're going to go pick up our worms and start our worm farm (vermicomposting bin), which the kids are very excited about. Norah's got her dance recital on Wednesday. We find out if Aidan advanced to the next belt in taekwondo (he tested on Saturday, but they left early with permission because he and dad had already trekked back to MKE for the testing and we didn't want him to miss out on too much of the waterpark!). He broke his board during testing. Go Aidan! Hopefully we'll get some photos from some other parents. And we have our school's annual Sock Hop on Thursday! Fun fun fun!

Edited to say... ok, guess I won't link to Flickr photos. They're off center and not all there. Grrr.

Norah & Elliott.... This is one of the many, many reasons that I love you.

When you rang the doorbell today and then charged in, carrying these in your hands, faces beaming, declaring, "mommy, we picked these for you. aren't they bootiful?", I loved nothing more than being your mom.